rebootied

That's pretty wild.

So now that the NAACP has stated it's so, that means everybody agrees with it, right? ;-)

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ferricide.livejournal.com

well, no, but it made big news over here.

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http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=84493

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imlac.livejournal.com

Sorry, that was me.

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YOU ARE A BIG ANONY-MOUSE.

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You're calling out mutations, exceptions, not what the standardized image is. Actually, if you want to go for a non-racist, but still classist term, "trailer trash" is an easy overlay, although it lacks the historical significance of having been a term invented by non-whites to be applied to whites.

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>It's racist and manages to get classism

I gather that folks who use the term probably care little about the implied meaning at the time. ;)

Is it still racist if used by a white person? I usually have heard it used in a semi-joking manner by white people. Certainly more often than by a non-white in a derogatory manner.

Ironically, I've had certain Japanese people explained to me to be "yellow trash" (in English) by other Japanese. I snickered involuntarily when I heard it.

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I should say, "probably care little about how the implied meaning reflects upon themselves".

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I guess what gets to me is that I hear people who are otherwise professed non-racists, and usually pretty successful at maintaining that mentality, trot out "white trash" carelessly, thoughtlessly - as though there is some kind of exemption for white folks that says that being trash is less common for them, and needs to be singled out by a race adjective.

It makes me think, well, waittaminnit, are they actually racist? I mean, these are people who become *aghast* if someone says, "Oh, that guy totally jewed me out of my share."

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Ya know, I've used this term, both about family members and other people I know, and I've always felt a bit guilty when I say it.

: /

It's probably a bad karma emitting idiom. But when I say "Hickerbilly" instead, it seems just as bad.

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I've never heard "hickerbilly" - I like that. It sounds playful. My Dad was a redneck, and he called himself a redneck. His family was poor enough that he could have been called "white trash," but the family was not culturally backward -- which I take to be a part of the insult of "white trash."

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funranium.livejournal.com

I have a step worse in terms of very specific connotation. Step back just two generations on my dads side and you have "hill folk" from Georgia and South Carolina. White trash is something to aspire to.

Of course my mother's side of the family is the slur of all slurs from another century: Irish.

As they said in Blazing Saddles, "We'll take the niggers and the chinks, but NO IRISH."

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HAH! Yeah, a friend of mine in Santa Cruz goes on about "NINA" whenever confronted about oppression and belonging to a minority group. Good grief, I can claim heaps: Irish, French, German -- and the most filthy of all: LUTEFISK EATERS (though I'll take lefse any day). I don't care to subscribe to, or to mollycoddle, any philosophy which starts off with the member victimizing themselves, as any ploy for special treatment.

I feel like the '90s were about that a lot: Make yourself a victim, so you can be cool; tell us who's oppressing you, so we can figure out what group you're in. MEH!

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>Make yourself a victim, so you can be cool; tell us who's oppressing you, so we can figure out what group you're in.

Which segues nicely into my personal pet peeve: ____-American.

I'm an Irish-American (except my closest truly Irish ancestors came to the US in the 1870s). Strike one.
Uh... I'm an Anglo-American (except my closest truly British ancestry came to the US in the 1640's!). Strike two.
Er... I'm a Greek-American (see Irish-American above).
Strike three.

Because, I'm just an American. Not a fuckin' European-American. Not an Irish-American. Not an African-American. Not an Asian-American (which usually means Chinese-American).

Just an American. Like the rest of you.

Not a Native American, but a native American nonetheless.

I swear that Americans are like the only people in the world who constantly wish they were from somewhere else and it's annoying.

When my inlaws first met me, many moons ago, they asked me what my ethnicity was. I said "American". But they said, "yes, but what kind of American?". My most recent foreign ancestors came from Dublin so I said, "I dunno. I guess I must be Irish-American". I felt retarded saying that.

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Incidentally, if I feel like prefixing anything to "-American" it is usually "Californian-American". ;)

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Have you ever read any of those screeds about how the U.S. is actually already about seven different countries in all but name? Balkanization waiting to happen, or at least a cultural divide that should be recognized and acknowledged.

California was the only state that was a country all itself. :)

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I definitely can see the differences in culture between certain areas of the US. My wife, who is originally from Tokyo, spent 6 years living in CT and definitely approaches everyday life differently than I (I'm originally from Santa Barbara, but spent 10 years living in SF) do.

I think it's a stretch to consider those differences in culture to constitute division into separate sovereignties, especially since those differences have more or less existed since the US began. We still have a greater overall culture uniting us that certainly becomes more apparent when outside the US looking in.

Heck, if small cultural differences were a sole determiner of sovereignty, Japan would be at least four separate nations that I can think of (North/East Honshu & Shikoku, South/West Honshu & Kyushu, Okinawa, Hokkaido) and probably more. :)

My choice to call myself Californian-American has more to do with the huge fame of California to people overseas. Several times when people have asked where I was from, I've simply said "California"-- not "America" with absolutely no confusion.

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I'm hugely interested in hearing more about the cultural characteristics of these parts of Japan as you see it if you don't mind typing a bit more:

(North/East Honshu & Shikoku, South/West Honshu & Kyushu, Okinawa, Hokkaido) and probably more. :)

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I don't mind. Ask

chronovore, once you get me started I don't shut up. Sometimes I'm even coherent!

I was thinking of those divisions based on stuff I've been told by various Japanese folks, but mostly by my wife. I am sure that Shikoku and Kyushu could be further broken out into their own subcultures, as well as northern Japan (I'm thinking Sendai/Aomori-ken areas). Certainly they all possess their own distinct dialects. Although I know a couple of people from both Shikoku and Kyushu, those people have adapted themselves to Tokyo living and speaking, as most folks who move here do and so I don't know the differences in culture that well.

Okinawa and Hokkaido differences are a little more obvious given the histories of both provinces. Okinawa was an independent island kingdom (although a tributary of Kagoshima's Satsuma clan for about 200 years) until just after the Meiji Restoration. The people there still have a traditional dress, traditional cuisine, a strong accent, and customs separate from the rest of Japanese society. There's even an Okinawan "look", as in the people tend to have stronger Polynesian facial features than the typical Mongolian features that make up the rest of Japanese society.

Hokkaido was the last refuge for the remaining, unabsorbed Mishihase, Emishi, and Ainu-- assorted indigenous peoples of the archipelago. So their influence affects some of the traditional ways of doing things, as does the simple fact that it's colder there than anywhere else in Japan. I don't know that Hokkaido is less typically "Japanese" than Okinawa though. The indigenous groups are more or less absorbed into overall Japanese society AFAIK.

The west Honshu vs. east Honshu thing is rooted in history. Has something to do with the fact that the capital was in Kyoto for a long time then got moved to Edo (Tokyo) by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Has something to do with the way the two areas of Japan have grown post-war.

In Tokyo, at least, the perception of Kansai/Kinki folks that I've heard is:
1. They're naturally funnier than Kanto people.
2. They push more to negotiate and demand more discounts than Kanto people.
3. They are more forward and direct than Kanto people.
4. The kids are more likely to be yanki (juvenile delinquents).

I'm sure that residents of Osaka have similar perceptions about people in Tokyo. The only things I know for sure is that:
1. Osaka has some of the best cuisine in Japan.
2. They stand on the opposite side of the escalator than Kanto-ites (Osaka: stand on right/walk on left. Tokyo: stand on left/walk on right).
3. They use a different electricity frequency (60kHz rather than 50kHz).
4. Most of the most popular comedians and entertainers in Japan are from Kansai.
5. It seems like every time I hear about a murder, it's happening in some Kansai backwater. (I've mentioned this to various people in Tokyo and I get a fairly consistent "ahhhh. sou da ne.")

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Cool. Thanks!
Yeah, I only knew the broader bits of that, which I have of course learned from that greatest purveyor of absolute truth and realism: Anime.

Kansai-ben cracks me up, and I'm not even fluent in Japanese. I know about as many words as the average family cat. But I can *still* tell that "Nan-DE-oh?!!" is funnier (and ruder)
than "nan desuka?"

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I like kansai-ben too. There's a popstar here named Koda Kumi whom I love to see interviews with because she's cute, but when she talks, she sounds like an obasan from Osaka who's smoked too many cigarettes. Ironically my wife has met her in the course of her work and said that she couldn't be sweeter.

My son watches a kids show in the mornings called "Nihongo de asobo" (Playing in Japanese)-- the show is meant to teach kids "kokugo" or appreciation and comprehension of Japanese as a language (like how we learn English in school). The show is part of a series of educational kids shows in the morning, "Eigo de asobo" (Playing in English), "Karada de asobo" (Playing Physically), etc.

Sorry, I digress. On Nihongo de asobo occasionally they have a segment where they introduce a common phrase ("gouchisousama deshita", "ittekimasu/iterashai", "hisashiburi", etc.) and then they show conversations with people from different parts of Japan using the phrase in those peoples natural dialects. They'll show two people talking in Sendai, and then the same conversation happening in Fukuoka, then the same conversation in Nagano, making it easy to contrast the differences in dialects. I find it VERY interesting.

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On Nihongo de asobo occasionally they have a segment where they introduce a common phrase ("gouchisousama deshita", "ittekimasu/iterashai", "hisashiburi", etc.) and then they show conversations with people from different parts of Japan using the phrase in those peoples natural dialects.

I love those sequences. Actually, I love NHK-E, the educational portion of the network. I'm almost consistently happy to let my kids watch the programming. Except they've started showing Curious George and Spongebob Squarepants. WTF?

But Eigo de Asobo and the Nihongo counterpart are a-ok. And my wife gets a kick in the mornings when I give up on lecturing, point to the TV, and tell the kids, 「ああ、も。日本語であそべや。」

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>I love those sequences. Actually, I love NHK-E, the educational portion of the network. I'm almost consistently happy to let my kids watch the programming. Except they've started showing Curious George and Spongebob Squarepants. WTF?

I admit, shamefully, I used to do everything possible to duck out of paying the NHK guy when he'd come around. After my kid was born, and considering he watches NHK in the mornings all the time (his favorite shows are 「いない　いない　ばああ！」 and　「お母さんといっしょ」) I put my cheapskate ways behind me and have dutifully paid the last couple times.

I saw the other day that they started showing Curious George. I'm at a loss to explain that one too. Especially because it now comes on in place of some of the shows they had on before which were kind of well-done, like 「ガンコちゃん」 and　「ばけるの小学校」. We usually leave the house by this time so we don't really get a chance to see how Curious George pans out.

We're sucking when we get back to the states-- not only, from what I could tell last time I was there, is there a lack of good programming, but my kid has already formed a negative opinion of "Sesame Street" (based on what he's seen of the Japanese version). He's a bit stubborn (like his Mom! shhhh!), so... uh oh.

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I asked my wife what we were doing about payment; she said after we moved, the NHK Guy, who is insanely greasy, smelly, and creepy, came around for payment. She didn't want to deal with him monthly, so we went on a direct-deposit plan.

I think NHK is crafty for using such an individual on housewives.

If you need J-TV stuff recorded and put on DVD-ROM, let me know. I've got a HDD recorder/DVD burner combo.

Of course, your wife can also join some Japanese filesharing net, and you can wire it to your TV pretty easily nowadays.

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Yeah, a white trash person is by definition someone who never or seldom reads, has never favored any culture beyond tractor pulls and TV, etc.

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sdemory.livejournal.com

"White trash" is a pretty loaded phrase, really. It's been traditionally used to describe white people who are so bad that they MAY AS WELL BE BLACK.

Yeah.

Admittedly, I've referred to people as "degenerate hillfolk" or "swamp-dwelling Kallikaks," but it takes a lot to get there. Usually, it takes living in the hills or the swamps, inbreeding and worshipping Lovecraftian deities in the hollers.

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'White trash' is a pretty loaded phrase, really. It's been traditionally used to describe white people who are so bad that they MAY AS WELL BE BLACK.

According to the all-knowing, ever evolving, undying beast that is Wikipedia, the phrase was coined by blacks to mock whites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_trash); that was pretty surprising. It also doesn't mean crap, in its current usage; particularly I'm frustrated in the case to which I referred, which was when white folks, particularly well-off white folks use it. That's the case that I see your described use occurring.

However, where I see it, it's not just a black thing; in California there's blacks, hispanics, asians, pacific islanders, etc. and the "white trash" thing seems to want to put the caucasians on top of that entire pile. That's what gets me.

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epiphaniesrus.livejournal.com

The truth is, it's difficult to separate politics from the financial situation. You don't think "white trash" just because of the fact that someone lives in a trailer park... you think it when someone fits a stereotype of the blue-collar worker who makes $18k a year while voting according to what Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage have to say and giving their money to the local 100,000 member megachurch.

As for the usage of the term itself... it's ok to despise people who shoot themselves in the foot economically while ruining things for the rest of us, without saying "white trash". I'm not fond of the term myself. You just need to separate out what it is that's distasteful about the person's behavior and use a term more directly linked with that. The opposite of you and me being branded a liberal - now there's a word you can unfairly stigmatize with a clear conscience!

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Yeah, but it's hard to shout, "You inconsiderate, wasteful, ill-educated, hopeless, underachieving LOUT" in one breath, especially if you're already worked up.

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yukoasho.livejournal.com

Agreed. It's simply a term used to racially split scumbuckets who happen to be white. I just call idiots by all races fucktards, there's no preference there.

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Yeah, I'm keen on "ass-hat" myself, because I don't want to offend the honest fucktardian peoples.

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